


Coffee, Honey and Silence

by renjunsrey



Series: Deaf Au's [3]
Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: CODA Jooheon, Coffee Shop, Deaf Character, Deaf Friends, First Meeting, Fluff, He actually wears his hearing aids, Hyungwon is also trans, Jooheon and Minhyuk are neighbours, Jooheon is gay but i don't really touch on it, M/M, Mild Ableism, Minhyuk has those cool bluetooth hearing aids, Minhyuk's dad is a little transphobic and ableist, Neighbours AU, Partially Deaf Minhyuk, Profoundly Deaf Changkyun, Sign Language, Trans Male Character, Trans Minhyuk, its not really bought up but its sweet, its very brief, love my lanky boy, this is just a meeting for the first time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-16
Updated: 2019-06-16
Packaged: 2020-05-12 22:00:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19237936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/renjunsrey/pseuds/renjunsrey
Summary: At least Minhyuk can't hear it when his father calls him by the wrong name for the fifth time within a couple of minutes, he just stares out the window of his little suburban house, and connects his hearing aids up to his phone bluetooth, playing soft tunes into his ears instead of his father's angered onslaught of insults. Staring out the window, past his father's lips, he sees a honey boy signing. Will Minhyuk venture to meet the Honey boy with the beautiful sign name? And will he find something good in his day to keep him going for a lifetime?AkaMinhyuk is Deaf, and he meets his neighbour Jooheon, a child of a Deaf mother, he finds with this new boy, a whole group of new lifelong friends, who he can talk to in every situation, who know exactly how he feels.





	Coffee, Honey and Silence

**Author's Note:**

> Hello friends! Sign language is written in italics, and all signs are based off Australian Sign Language, so they may be unfamiliar to you ASL users out there! 
> 
> My understanding of Deaf Culture is based entirely on my own experience being HOH, and taking Deaf Culture classes, so if you find anything inaccurate, please let me know! I will happily learn about it and educate myself further!
> 
> \--
> 
> Minhyuk is partially Deaf, so he has most of his hearing when he wears his hearing aids, but he can still hear loud sounds. He has those cool hearing aids that you can hook up to your phone's bluetooth, they're hella expensive but don't mind that.  
> Changkyun is Profoundly Deaf, he was born Deaf and a cochlear is really not worth his time, because his friends all sign  
> Jooheon is born to a Deaf mother, but is hearing, so he grew up signing.  
> Everyone else just signs bc why not

Minhyuk sits at his kitchen counter, making a cup of coffee, lazily scrolling through his phone, when his father decides to walk into the kitchen and make a massive fuss. He yells at Minhyuk, who, sick of his bullshit, finishes making his cup of coffee, and goes to sit at the table, where he can still see his fuming father.

 

Minhyuk is sure that today his father is worked up because he could tell that Minhyuk was wearing his binder, and he had changed his name with the school, so he didn’t have to hear his deadname everyday. His father was yelling, absolutely losing it at Minhyuk, but he was used to it now, even though he wished everyday that he wasn’t such a burden on his family. Because what traditional family would want a Deaf, Trans son? Not his, and Minhyuk was sure of that, from the way his mother flinched every time that he was talking to his friends and they called him by his correct name and pronouns, and from the way that his father was currently screaming at him about ‘denying his femininity’.

 

At least Minhyuk can’t hear it when his father calls him by the wrong name for the third time in less than 5 minutes, he simply hooks his hearing aids up to his phone’s bluetooth under the table. He scrolls through his Spotify, and welcomes the soft flow of HOLLAND to his ears. His only solace from his father’s anger, the rolling tones helping him space out. 

Minhyuk’s father slams his hand down on the dinner table when he sees Minhyuk staring down, even if it was just for a second.

“Look at me when I’m talking to you!” he yells, Minhyuk can hear it even though his hearing aids aren’t turned on to exterior sound, so he looks up to his father’s red face, following his lips for a second to pretend like he was listening, as if he was lip reading and following the argument. Minhyuk is past the point of caring about his father’s outbursts, so he looks past his father’s lips and out the window to across the street.

 

He watches as his neighbours walk out and sit on their porch, swinging their legs as they enjoy a cup of tea, Minhyuk invests himself in the tiny window into their lives, when he sees a tall black haired boy walked out the front door, with a mug in his hand, and sit down next to the older woman on the porch. He smiles, and Minhyuk wishes he was outside sitting with them, enjoying his coffee in the warm morning together, Minhyuk watches them, zoning out of his father’s yelling, trying to imagine himself in their warm looking bubble of the world.

 

He’s quite content staring at the mother and son duo, enjoying their drinks while his father continues to fly insults at him, until he sees the neighbour put down his cup, and start signing.

_ Wait a second, he’s signing? _ Minhyuk’s eyebrows furrow, as he tries to focus on what they’re saying, from across the road. The boy has a lovely smile, and very smooth movements that almost flow like the soft tunes in Minhyuk’s ears, so he follows their conversation, enamoured by the beautiful boy. He sees ‘ _ Honey’ _ a couple of times, and the boy responds to the woman when she signs it,  _ maybe that’s his sign name _ , concludes Minhyuk, and he decides that he would like to be friends with this Honey boy.

 

The boy talks of his friends, whose names Minhyuk doesn’t grasp, signed too fast, or sign names that mean nothing to him flying through conversation. He tells of someone who was a barista who learnt sign, and the boy blushes as he tells of this, and his mother teases him about liking the barista, receiving a failing hand from her son, who buried his face into his hands.

 

‘ _ Mum, he has a boyfriend,,, don’t be mean’ _ the boy signs, before patting her on the arm playfully, and getting up to take the duo’s cups inside. Moments later, the woman follows the tall boy inside and shuts their front door, and Minhyuk is left to have to focus on his father’s face once more.

 

“Just,, ,, , , for your mother, for god's sake” Minhyuk reads his father’s lips, broken sentences reaching his mind, he’s sort of confused, but he can see that his father’s anger is deflating a little, so he offers a small nod and gets up from the table, making movements gentle but deliberate, as to avoid further anger from his father. He places his mug in the sink after rinsing it and makes for the hallway so he can take refuge in his room until his father leaves for his weekend shift. As he leaves, he knows that his father is probably going to protest his exit, so Minhyuk turns around to look at his father, leaning slightly against the door frame to the hallway, and signs, as much as his father always insists he should talk, since he has hearing aids and can hear his own speech perfectly fine.

 

‘ _ I’m going to my room, I have to get ready to see my friend’ _  He’s lying, but his father doesn’t know that, so Minhyuk walks down the hall to his bedroom, and flops on his bed, wondering about the boy across the road who signs. Just who  _ was he? _

Minhyuk decides after about half an hour of debating with himself, that he will in fact get ready to go and see a friend, not a friend  _ yet _ , but he feels he should go to meet the neighbour so he can make more friends. 

 

He decides, eventually, on a nice tight black shirt, that makes his chest look like he has really sweet pecks, and some nice tracksuit pants, adding a beanie for good measure, before he grabs his phone and keys and ducks out the front door, without alerting his father.

 

Hearing aids on, and hidden under his beanie, Minhyuk makes his way over to the neighbour’s house, although he has no idea why he hid his hearing aids if he was going to meet other signing people. He rings the doorbell, and watches as the light in the hallway near the door flashes, waiting patiently for an answer, he rocks on his heels. When he hears the bolt unlock on the door, he steps back a little, and brushes his shirt down a little, checking that his binder couldn’t be seen, before smiling at the curly haired boy that greets him.

 

When the boy pokes his head around the door, Minhyuk can see why he would be called Honey, his beautiful tanned skin dotted by freckles glinting in the sun that greets him. Minhyuk stops functioning for a second, as he tries to think of what to say to the neighbour, he has his hands half raised, a bit like a dinosaur, when the neighbour speaks, throwing him off guard.

 

“Hello? How can I help you?” Minhyuk is taken aback by the voice that matches the soft face of the boy, and his brain short circuits, before he realises he’s probably waited a beat too long to reply, and his voice would probably betray him while speaking. Minhyuk raises his hands, putting on the most polite smile he can muster, before signing.

 

‘ _ Sorry to bother you! I live across the road, and I saw you signing earlier, I would like to be friends’  _ Minhyuk smiles hopefully at Honey, who is looking at him with a curious expression, Minhyuk hopes he didn’t come across as rude, despite using his formal signs, so he adds on a quick ‘ _ If you wouldn’t mind, that is’ _ .

 

The boy looks at Minhyuk, with a little smile, that grows as he sees Minhyuk’s tiny quip of politeness to end his sentence. His smile comforts Minhyuk’s tiny gay panic, when the soft boy opens up the door a little more, showing his, surprisingly toned body, rather than just his head, so he could sign to the stranger at his door.

 

‘ _ You’re Deaf?’ _ Honey quickly signs, raising his eyebrows to Minhyuk, who nods ‘ _ Sweet, my mum is Deaf, I’m Jooheon, Lee Jooheon’ _ Jooheon extends his hand for Minhyuk to shake, the warmth in his chest blooming at being welcomed as another guy, or at least someone masculine enough for a handshake.

 

‘ _ Lee Minhyuk, you can just call me Min if you’d like’ _ Minhyuk smiles, showing Jooheon his sign name, with a little flourish of his hand, for Jooheon to copy

 

‘ _ MinMin’ _ Jooheon signs absentmindedly,  _ ‘I like it! You can call me Honey if you like’ _ showing Minhyuk his sign name, a little J in the flick of his pinky as he signs ‘honey’, Minhyuk’s brain losing it a little at how cute the sign name is, his name like Joohoney, and Minhyuk’s brain short circuits a little, so he doesn’t realise that he’s tested out Jooheon’s name spoken

 

“Joohoney? Thats cute” Minhyuk mumbles, realising that he’s spoken, when the boy in front of him looks up, a little startled that he’s spoken for the first time in their conversation, but his face bright red as he gets complimented

 

“Thanks, my mum chose it for me, she says I’m like Honey” Jooheon smiles at Minhyuk, warm and genuine. 

The two end up talking for a couple of hours sitting on the porch, alternating between signing and speaking as they went with feelings, about everything and nothing. Minhyuk finds out that Jooheon had moved into his neighbourhood a couple of months ago, from the other side of town, and had moved to Minhyuk’s school last month, but he already had friends there so he wasn’t too big in making new friends outside of his small group. They talk for a while, and Minhyuk avoids the fact that he’s trans, too scared to lose a friend before he could make one, because it wasn’t often that he met someone who could sign.

 

Somewhere during the day, Jooheon brings up his other friends, who are planning to meet up at a cafe in the town, later in the day, and invites Minhyuk along, assuring him that they are all very kind people, and would be willing to welcome him into their group. Minhyukk agrees to come along, because what’s the harm in meeting some of his neighbour’s friends if he could possibly become closer with his neighbour? So as the clock approaches 2pm, the two walk together, chatting the whole way, to a neat little cafe on the edge of the town.

 

\-- --

  
  


When they enter the little industrial style hipster cafe, the last thing that Minhyuk expects is to see his best friend Kihyun behind the counter, serving a group of rowdy boys, but there he is, peachy hair and a smile on his face. When he looks up to greet the new customers, Kihyun grins at Minhyuk, and puts his tea towel down on the counter before coming closer to his friend along the counter

 

‘ _ What’s up stranger? Haven’t seen you in a day or two’ _  Kihyun grins at Minhyuk

 

‘ _ You work here? It’s so nice Kihyun!’ _ Minhyuk falls into his comfortable banter with Kihyun until he feels a light whack on his arm, and he looks at the culprit to find Jooheon with his mouth hanging open

 

‘ _ You know Kihyun?’  _  Minhyuk nods, with a shy smile, confirming Jooheon’s surprise ‘ _ How? He’s like the only barista we know that can sign!’ _ Kihyun lets out a little laugh at that and pitches in from behind the counter

 

‘ _ He’s the friend that I learnt sign for! I told you about him, Jooheon!’  _ Once Jooheon gets over his initial shock, he nods his head a little, then starts to walk over to the group of boys, who have fallen back into silence and a flurry of hands, as one tells a very exciting story. 

_ ‘Can I have a hot chocolate Kihyun-ah?’  _ Minhyuk asks, following Jooheon a second later, avoiding any questions that Kihyun would throw at him about his new-found friendship with the cafe regular.

 

The group of boys welcomes Minhyuk quickly, just as Jooheon had told him they would, and includes him in what he finds out to be Changkyun’s very animated story about something he’d watched on television. Once Minhyuk is introduced to everyone, he finds out that only Changkyun and Minhyuk were the Deaf ones in the group, with Jooheon being a child of a Deaf mother, and Hyunwoo growing up with Jooheon, and being exposed to sign at a very young age too. Minhyuk is told later that Hyungwon and Hoseok learnt to sign for the fun of it, and maybe for other reasons, as Jooheon lets slip, because the two boys had a little thing for one of the others, until they had actually got to know each other, and then decided they were better off as friends.

The boys all banter, sat on a ring of couches, with Jooheon and Minhyuk sitting on chairs, taken from other tables in the reasonably busy cafe, as they were late-comers, missing out on the 4 available spots without having to crush the other boys. Kihyun comes over with a tray of drinks, laying them all down in front of what he assumes the usual boy to have each beverage, before he places back the tray he had, leaving Minhyuk thinking he was without a drink for all of about 1 minute. Kihyun taps him on the shoulder, and hands Minhyuk a warm hot chocolate with a marshmallow floating in the milk foam, just how he knows his friend likes it, before leaving a soft kiss on the top of his beanie, and walking back around the counter to clean up and take a few customer’s orders.

 

When Minhyuk looks up to the new group of friends, he’s greeted with a couple of boys with their eyebrows raised, giving teasing looks at Minhyuk and Kihyun, and he knows that Kihyun must have been waiting for the response when he hears a muffled laugh from behind him, and Kihyun’s rich voice

 

“He’s like basically my twin, just taller, don’t you get any ideas in your little brains!” he shouts out, Minhyuk, faced away from Kihyun, assumes he must have signed his comment too; because he sees Changkyun nod his head a second later. Minhyuk blushes at the comment anyway, thinking of the small possibility of being more than just brothers with Kihyun, but he shakes the idea pretty quickly, and just sips his hot chocolate, as Hoseok brings back the nice flow of conversation, talking about the really fat cat he saw while he was walking home from the gym after school.

 

Minhyuk enjoys his drink with the new boys, who end up pestering him for his phone number so they could all talk after Jooheon and Minhyuk left for home. After a smiling exchange, and a mess of funny nicknames left in his contacts, which Minhyuk figures is how each of the boys translates their sign names, Minhyuk puts his chair back under the table he stole it from, and wishes each of the boys goodbye, and tells them he will text them later.

 

Minhyuk and Jooheon leave the shop together, joking about their friends, while walking back to their neighbour, once they’re standing back in front of their little suburban houses, Minhyuk walks Jooheon up to his porch, where the two had met earlier that day, and holds out his phone.

 

“Can I have your number too, Honey?” He smiles, seeing Jooheon get a little flustered by his nickname spoken out loud instead of signed, but Jooheon takes the phone from his hand and pops in his contact, before sending himself a quick text so that he has Minhyuk’s number too. Minhyuk takes back his phone when Jooheon hands it out to him, wishing him a good day, and walking back across the road to his house.

 

When Minhyuk checks his phone later, laying on his bed, he scrolls through the little messages that everyone sent to themselves to save his contact, he smiles the most, when he clicks into his message history with Jooheon

 

**To: Joohoney**

**[honey pot emoji] i’m glad i met you today, see you soon minmin~**

 

Minhyuk smiles, as he sees a message notification pop up saying he was added to a group-chat, maybe he was glad that his dad decided to yell at him this morning, because without it, he probably wouldn’t have seen his neighbour signing with his mum, and he wouldn’t have met the new group of signing friends until he went to work with Kihyun, maybe years down the track.

 

**[silent crackheads]**

 

**From: Shownu~**

**Welcome Minhyuk! I’m glad we met!**

 

**From: I M**

**You’re so cool!! I haven’t met another Deaf person besides Jooheon’s mum lmao**

 

**From: Joohoney**

**Hell yeah look at my neighbour, making friends and all!**

**I still can’t believe you know Kihyun, that’s so wild**

 

**From: MinMin**

**I’m really glad I met you guys too! You’re so cool,,**

**I actually don’t have that many signing friends besides Kihyun and my friend Taeyong!**

**So you guys are a welcome change**

 

**From: WonHo~**

**Whoa really?! Man we’ll be so good friends~**

 

**From: MinMin**

**I’ll talk to you guys later~**

**My Dad just got home so I should help my mum make dinner**

 

**From: Joohoney**

**Hell yeah masterchef, talk later!**

 

**From: Hyungwon!**

**Hey hi whats up I just turned my phone on!**

**Oh lol, talk later Min!**

 

**From: Shownu**

**Have a nice dinner Minhyuk~**

**Author's Note:**

> Hello Friends!
> 
> I hope you really enjoyed this cute little oneshot! I had a lot of fun writing it!   
> I actually came up with Jooheon's sign name in this fic after a lovely conversation with my signing friends, and I kinda lost it bc its much cuter than my sign name.
> 
> I'll be back soon with more Deaf au's, so in the mean time, come and scream at me on Twitter @renjunsrey !!
> 
> Have a lovely day~


End file.
